Friday, October 28, 2005

Dead Poet's Society

My math teacher is just like the teacher from DPS. We're doing story problems in class now, and he told us to open our books to the chapter, and look at the first example. "Stuipd," He said. The next, "Stupid." On and on, through four or five of them until he closed his book with a snap. "Now, if this was the Dead Poet's Society, I would tell you to take out a ruler and rip out this section, but since you probably want to sell the book back, you don't have to."
I wish this was the way all teachers thought. It's not about memorizing a string of facts and regurgitating them on a test and supposedly, you've learned something. Learning is about thinking. It's about knowing how to attack a problem, find the answer and conquer!
Now, not all teachers have to be rather cavalier and rip up books, but I do believe they ought to instruct their students in the art of thinking. Of solving things by your own brains, which most of us don't give enought credit to. I know I don't.

It's been a long, long, long, long time....

Yes, I think that's from a Beatles song. Maybe not. In any case I've not written here for something on the order of 21 days, which, if you're in a play, isn't that long. We're about to open The Sound of Music in 7 days! MAH! It's a little daunting. But fun nonetheless.
I've been knitting, as I have some down time between singing in latin, and doing French homework.
My mom bought this beautiful hooded scarf quite a while ago, and I love it. However, the only problem is that it (of course) belongs to my mom. So, being the crafty knitter that I am, (not to mention being tired of a cold neck and back of head) I decided to make one of my own. After all, how hard can it be to knit a scarf, and put a hood on it? Not very hard at all.
Here's the parent, and origional:



It's kinda hard too see, but it's really darn cute! A friend said I looked like a mushroom head, I prefer to believe I'm either an elf or a gnome.

And, introducing the scarf! It's still in it's infancy. Sweet thing!



Everyone who sees me knitting it comments on the color. I got the yarn at a Street Fair for way less than a dollar. I purchased something like 10 skeins that day for about $6. So cool! I really wanted a skein of the recycled sari silk yarn, but not at a whopping $10 a skein. (That's expensive for a collge student who only works part time!) Maybe next year if I save my pennies.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Accumulate

That is my new mantra for French class. Accumulate! Accumulate! Accumulate! Learning a new language ic cumulative. You have to let it steep in your brain, if you will, until it's fully brewed, and then you can use it. I'm an instant gratification person, slowly teaching myself to be a delayed gratification person. Learning French is one of those teaching methods, although it is fully unrealized.
("Unrealized idea. Unrealized." laugh if you get it, if you don't, read on)
Um, yes. French. So I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm just going to have to spend tons of time memorizing words until I know them all and how to use them. That way I'll have something gratifying to do that builds on the language learning.

It's really interesing being in college because it expands your mind. Some of it you may reject, saying, "No, that's not right according to me!" but it still sticks in you brain, naggling at the edges until you decide to chew on it a while. AFter ruminating, you discover that you've learned something, and change your view perhaps, or reenforce it. You shouldn't let your views and ideas, personal standards and dreams get eaten up though. But you do need to listen to what other people are saying. "Agree to disagree." I learned that my first quarter of my first year, sadly the person teaching didn't figure it out, but it was a good example to me to keep to that rule. And to recognize when someone is mad deep inside and they really don't care that what they say makes others feel bad about themselves. Elanor Roosevelt is quoted "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." I love writing that quote in margins of paper when I'm in a bad class. Repeating it over and over in my brain. Hamlet also comes to mind.
"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether tis nobler to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them....
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs os disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That paitent merit of th'unworth takes"

Poor Yarn-ic

The product of a tired brain, too much time, and a love of things knitting/theatre:




The caption is, "Alas poor Yarn-ic, I knit him well."